


The Age of Heroes & Villains

by AndreaLyn



Series: Star Trek Mutants [1]
Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-28
Updated: 2011-05-28
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim hasn't been a Normal since he was ten years old. Now that mutant-rights are beginning to be fought for, he's on the cutting edge of it all. He just wishes he didn't have to keep his abilities secret from his best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Age of Heroes & Villains

_2259_

 _…in today’s news, citizens of San Francisco cited a strange sighting in the sky. A young girl named Margot Hyde said that were it not for the glint of a strange sword-like object, she never would have had her attention pulled to the skirmish in the sky between the man and a strange creature that bystanders have yet to be able to identify…_

*

Jim looks up from the news broadcast on the television to take another glimpse up the stairs and see if Bones is coming downstairs or if he’s still in that hush-hush conversation with Joanna that’s been going on for the last twenty minutes. It’s not like Jim even knows what it’s about. Hell, he doesn’t even care. He’s pretty much assuming it’s one of those father-daughter things about how her skirts are too short or she threw sand at somebody at school. He’s never really cared that his best friend comes attached with a daughter, even when she is keeping them from going out for the evening. Having Joanna around actually makes the house feel a little more lived in.

Idly, he turns the television off and makes a note to call Sulu and ask him what the _hell_ he was thinking going up against the mutated creature that had landed with the asteroid from the belts past Mars. If he’d called Jim, he’d have been there to help in a second flat. They’re part of a five-way tenuous alliance that only exists because Captain Pike had met them all in some seedy bar or empty classroom and put his abilities to good use, coaxing them into joining up to share resources and defenses.

The five of them have the loosest affiliation Jim’s ever called claim to in his life. Pike’s the silver-tongued bastard, Sulu’s got their asses covered from the sky, Jim’s able to heal himself within seconds (knitting bones and skin together), Gaila’s chameleonic talents let her do whatever she wants (and Jim’s got first-hand knowledge of the benefits of that when it comes to bed), and Chekov’s good at reading thoughts (which is not a very good one in the bedroom, not that Jim knows from experience so much as gossip).

Keeping this from Bones has been one of the most difficult tasks in his life, but he’s managed to keep it a secret ever since they met up on a shuttle so long ago. Of course, one day a young girl of ten had turned up on their doorstep and Jim’s pretty sure he would have remembered ordering that particular stork. So McCoy had kept Jo from him and Jim is still keeping his mutant abilities from his best friend (though it’s not the easiest thing in the world suppressing his abilities so McCoy can swear up and down the street while fixing his wounds).

…because maybe Jim likes it when McCoy touches him and so he lets himself stay hurt for that.

Pike calls him a masochist during a meeting three months ago. Gaila clucks her disappointment, and Chekov gets a look so strange on his face that Jim assumes that Sulu’s been trying strange new sex tactics and Chekov can’t bother to focus on the topic at hand.

He rues the day Chekov learns to extend his ability to plant his thoughts in other people’s minds because Chekov’s young yet and while he might be able to control the ability, he’s not the best at filtering out all the thoughts. When Chekov is practicing on Jim, he inevitably ends up with the thought transfer’s worth of a dozen new uncanny notions of how to have sex.

He tells Bones this over beers one night while Joanna is upstairs coloring. The sun is setting into the horizon and Bones is pushing his rocking chair back and forth with a steady foot on the ground working as a pedal. “Honest to god, Jim, leave the boy’s sex life out of your conversations.” It’s difficult to tell Bones that he doesn’t bring it up, that Chekov does it by way of merely projecting his thoughts when he’s around the League of Five (which is Gaila’s idea and totally not the best name in the world. Jim’s got a notebook of suggestions he’s going to bring up at the next meeting).

More than once, Jim’s been on the edge of telling Bones all about his talents and abilities, but he has the feeling if he tells Bones, ‘I can heal myself and anyone else around me’, that’s going to lead to a lot of awkward questions about why Jim turns up in the ER as much as he does.

So here they are.

Jim is at the base of the stairs and leaning against the railing while he waits for McCoy. This is the moment that he wishes that he had the ability to hear through walls or maybe render himself invisible so that he could be a fly in the room. As far as he can tell, there are a couple of heavy thumps, complained shrieks from Joanna, and a lot of “MISS MCCOY’S” being bandied about. He sighs heavily and rolls his eyes. “Are we going out or what?” he calls up the stairs and taps, taps, taps his fingers on the railing, eyeing a place on his palm that ought to have scarred when he was no more than ten years old.

Jo’s eleven now. Jim’s determined that she never suffers a scar like that in her entire life, no matter what lengths he has to go to in order to prevent it from happening.

Eventually, the door to Joanna’s room opens and McCoy hesitates outside it as he looks like he’s trying to control himself before slamming it shut. Jim watches warily as McCoy descends the stairs and levels a furious glare at Jim. He’s pretty sure that he hasn’t done anything to earn that kind of vitriol, but he self-checks with his acts over the last few days and discovers that he’s in the clear.

“What’s up?”

“Uhura putting ideas in my daughter’s head,” McCoy mutters. “I’m leaving it at that. C’mon, let’s go get that drink you promised me.”

Jim trails behind Bones and can’t hide his grin.

“If Uhura is putting things anywhere, she should be putting…”

“Jim, don’t,” Bones warns and turns to smack him lightly over the head, corralling him with an arm around his shoulder. “The babysitter will be here in a little while, Jo knows what to do until then, and you and I have a date with a bar’s worth of alcohol.”

Jim just wishes that his stomach didn’t flip the way it did when Bones said ‘date’ like that. He wants to stop them and twirl their bodies until Bones is pressed up against the nearest wall, wants to kiss him until they’re both breathless, wants them to share each other’s words while Jim’s mouth is pressed against all the warm expanses of skin on Bones’ body. He wants to break down the barriers and tell Bones the truth about everything, but Bones seems intent to get to the bar to drink away some worry that Jim’s not even aware of.

They procure their usual booth at the bar and Jim sits in silence as he watches Bones coax the bartender to give him a full bottle of the best whiskey. If he hadn’t witnessed Bones’ talent with bartenders, he might think that his best friend’s got a little bit of Pike’s silver-tongued talents. But Bones is the most normal man he’s ever met so there’s no reason to think that he would ever understand what it’s like to be a freak of nature.

Jim’s used to being a freak, used to being called names on the playground. He’s always looked at it as a gift because it means that Jim’s not like the rest of the kids.

He’s _better_.

“What’s with the drinking?” Jim finally asks after three fingers’ worth of whiskey, not sure that anything’s happened during the day to make Bones act the way he is. “Bad shift at the hospital or something?”

“Just the Dad thing,” Bones admits with a heavy sigh. “When she was a baby, this was easier. Sure, she spit up on you, but she couldn’t argue back. Now it’s all about wanting to attend protests and start campaigns to Congressmen and a dozen other things she’s too damn young for.”

Jim’s suspicious and wonders if that’s everything that’s going on with Joanna, but he trusts Bones and if he says that’s the deal, then that’s the deal. They get to talking about the Academy and Jim tells him the latest news about his meetings with Pike – carefully omitting all details about his involvement on campus as a mutant – and stares longingly over the table at Bones.

It’s become difficult to keep the truth from him. The words nearly slip out on a nightly basis in his subconscious’ effort to tell Bones everything because Jim’s never going to be okay with the fact that he keeps _anything_ at all from McCoy.

They get to discussing their upcoming exams and are laughing jovially when there is a commotion at the entrance to the bar.

Jim stands up at roughly the same time as Bones does, but neither of them are really sure of what’s going on. Jim’s eyes grow frantic as anything as he recognizes the patches on the mens’ black vests as the Anti-Mutant Alliance, a group that’s had he and Sulu on their list for the last six months, ever since the skirmish in Albuquerque.

“Oh, fuck,” Jim gets out desperately.

He’s used to getting in bar brawls because of what he is. He’s never told Bones that this is the reason he tends to get so beat up. He lets his best friend think that he’s just a fight-happy maniac who gets off on the feel of his face covered in contusions and the taste of blood on his tongue. It’s better than the truth: _Well, I fight people who’d rather see me dead than have rights._ Add in the part where Jim prefers the company of men and he’s a cocktail of sin for people who would have him put down.

Bones is looking curiously at him, but Jim’s all panic and ready to burst. “Bones, I gotta get out of here, we have to go,” he pleads.

Bones just looks at the three men coming into the bar and seemingly coming straight for them.

“Bones!”

Jim’s ready to yank Bones by the wrist and drag him out the back door, but instead of looking like he’s ready to go anywhere, Bones is _grabbing the bottle of whiskey_ and calmly pouring a full glass as the goons start pointing at Jim in the corner of the bar.

“Fuck, fuck, oh fuck, Pike is going to kill me,” Jim bemoans aloud, his narrative constant and whispered as his attention is split between the three guards of a hate-group and Bones, who is currently lifting the glass of whiskey to his lips. He pauses with the rim of the glass on his lower lip and then tips it back, never once closing his eyes and never taking his gaze off of the men in the doorway.

Jim doesn’t know what’s going on, but escape is out of the question.

The patrons of the bar have started to mill in chaos. Some split like the Red Sea on the dance floor, others have flocked to the door. Some are on their phones whispering furiously and the hushed din of the crowd is making Jim’s blood boil and he can feel the tension crackling in the air like a thunderbolt is about to clap and let loose the storm.

Bones finishes his drink and steps in front of Jim, wiping away a stray droplet from the corner of his lips with his thumb. They just stand there, the two of them versus the other three and Jim is still swearing away.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he’s iterating. It’s not that he cares about getting injured, but the last thing he ever wanted to do is to drag Bones into this.

The lead goon is a tall blonde man who looks like he’s twice the size of Cupcake if such a thing is possible. He’s got shaggy blonde hair and his black vest barely fits him. The other two look wirier, but no less determined to do some damage.

It’s the lead man (Tart, Jim’s already calling him) who breaks the tension and makes the first move, barreling at Bones.

His best friend, his Bones, his _doctor_ just waits for the attack. He just _waits_.

Jim would pay more attention, but he’s currently being attacked by the Wire on the left who throws a weak punch and goes down easily when Jim counters with a right hook. Out of the corner of his eye, he watches Bones crouch slightly and flip the lead goon over his shoulder, pinning him on the table behind him before Bones’ hand goes for the goon’s neck. Bones has got an impressive chokehold and so Jim takes his attention off of Bones to focus on his own fight.

There’s a right hook, a kick, a punch, and then Wire #2 manages to get a beer bottle smashed over Jim’s head. Glass fragments splinter to the ground, sounding like a disconcerting rain shower and adding to the mess that’s already going to take ages to clean up. He lets out a yelp of pain and brushes the remaining shards off with a careless swipe. If there’s no foreign object left there, it’ll heal within minutes and Jim lets out a furious yell as he tackles the Wire to the ground and uses his elbow to knock him unconscious.

Wire #2 is already there and yanking Jim off of his buddy by securing him in a chokehold. Jim’s vision starts to blur in whites and blacks and he’s not sure he’s seeing things right, but he’s pretty sure that the goon is being thrown to the bar and Bones is after him, throwing a punch that doesn’t land in time (the goon rolling away to evade him) and the bar just folds in _half_ , like someone’s dropped a piano on it.

He blinks and thinks it has to be the oxygen-deprivation. His legs flail and he gasps, chokes, and eventually manages to land a solid kick to Wire #2’s knees, freeing him of the hold and sending him stumbling to the glass-covered ground. Jim’s picking up cuts left and right, but none of them are going to be permanent and none of them are going to matter.

The crowd is screaming now. There are sirens in the distance which means they’re coming _here_ and Jim’s already been warned by Pike that he can’t be arrested any more times or else they’re going to have severe issues.

He grabs the closest weapon he can find (in this case a bottle of Stolichnaya, Chekov would be proud) and lets out a visceral shout as he clubs Wire #2 with the bottle, sending him into a crumpled pile with his cohort in crime.

A quick glance across the club tells Jim that Bones is through with the lead-goon and is wiping away trace remnants of blood from his face.

“Bones,” Jim breathlessly gasps, nodding to the back door. “We gotta go,” he insists desperately, not even wanting to think about what would happen if they stay while those sirens get closer. The crowd is trying to get out, crowding the exits and now Jim and Bones are amongst them, trying to find their way out. Jim finds himself staring at Bones while they push their way through the crowd and the sirens are nearby sounding murder. People keep bumping into him and the wound on his head is almost fully healed because he’s not in control and his volition to keep it an open wound is another town over. He can feel the blood on his face, but he can’t feel the sting of air on the cut. All he can see is Bones.

The night air is cool on his skin and the crowd is long behind them, but Jim’s not going to forget what he’d just seen.

The police are going to be there soon and the affairs of government and the mutants are still tenuous at best and so Jim threads his fingers with McCoy’s and yanks him along until they’ve earned themselves the privacy of a dank alley. If he closes his eyes, he pretends he can feel something sparking between their fingers. He knows it’s a deceit, a lie he’s telling himself.

“Jim, your wound,” Bones says, his words sounding puffy, as if stuffed with cotton balls. His accent is thick and Jim doesn’t know whether he wants to blame the alcohol or the shock of the moment.

Jim’s still stuck going over the event.

McCoy shouldn’t have been able to put a dent in the bar like that. How drunk and injured had Jim been? How absolutely beyond the point of reason is he and how incapable is he of seeing things for the truth?

As for the truth, it’s about to come out and he can’t exactly hide it any longer. His clothes are stained with dry blood, but there’s no wound to incriminate him. He reaches trembling fingers upwards and pats down the former-head wound. His fingertips are covered in blood when he pulls them away and it makes him swallow anxiously, choking on a hundred excuses for this.

Bones rescues him. “You’re mutant, aren’t you?”

Jim doesn’t say ‘yes’, doesn’t nod, doesn’t move. He just holds Bones’ eye contact and agrees to the accusation (or is it nothing more than a question?) He is mutant and has been since he discovered his abilities at ten years old after nearly going off a cliff and coming out of it without a single bruise on his body. He’s been a mutant and he’s in Starfleet and he’s going to go up into space and see what the big black monster of space has to throw at him.

He just doesn’t expect to feel so absolutely concerned with Bones’ reaction to all of this.

 _…how could he…_

He feels uneasy and it doesn’t go away when suddenly a blur freezes at McCoy’s side and Joanna is there with her father, smacking at his chest with her tiny fists. She’s shouting something at him and the sirens haven’t quieted and the chaos has only gotten worse since the brawl broke up.

Jim staggers to the nearest gutter, falls to his knees, and is promptly the sickest he’s been since he first decided to break into Frank’s liquor cabinet and down the contents of the rum and the vodka.

The mutant gene is passed on genetically. Therefore, if Joanna is capable of doing what she’s just exhibited, then she either got it from Jocelyn or she got it from Bones. Jim knows for a fact that Jocelyn works for the Mutant-Human Rights Protection League, the one that deals with the dangerous mutants out there and knows that each staffer there submits to a genetic test that labels them normal or mutant.

She’d come up normal.

So this means…

“Joanna, what are you doing out of bed, go _home_ ,” Bones is commanding her sharply, a look of fraught concern on her face as he clasps her by the shoulders, a twitch by his eye telling Jim everything he needs to know, namely that Bones is trying to control himself. That dent in the bar is going to haunt Jim’s dreams. “I need you to get out of here before _they_ turn up. Go.” Joanna stares at him, her expression fraught, but Bones looks perilously less like he has any control. “Joanna! _Go home_!”

“Jim?” she asks anxiously over her shoulder, staring at him.

Her gaze gravitates slowly to his head wound and Jim knows that there’ll be no secrets between them because she can see as easily as Bones could that there’s no wound and all the evidence that points to there being one.

“Oh,” is all Joanna says, weak and scared. “He’s not. Daddy, he’s not…”

“I’m finding out. Go home, Joanna,” Bones warns, his gaze never lifting off of Jim. Suddenly, all his blood runs cold and Jim doesn’t want to know what’s about to happen. Joanna listens and just as fast as she came, she’s gone in the direction opposite the sirens. Jim falters backwards against the wall and stares at Bones, trying to psyche himself up. He can’t be injured. If he can’t be hurt, then he can’t have any harm done to him by Bones.

Jim may be overlooking the part of this in which there’s a lot more in the world that can hurt beyond physical pain.

He stumbles backwards, tripping and only regaining balance when his back hits the brick wall of the alley, skin scraping against dirty brick and stone. His breath is caught in his throat as blood drips and pools on the ground below him. It’s going to leave evidence, but he’s too busy being concerned with the way Bones is advancing on him.

“The bar,” Jim says, lifting his chin to remain solidly stubborn about all of this, trying to make sure he doesn’t falter. “That dent you put in the bar, that wasn’t possible. That bar was oak and mahogany and solid. You’re not a normal,” he accuses. “You and Joanna, you’re both like me. Mutant. Aren’t you?” Bones is coming closer by the second and Jim has to get this out. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You can heal yourself and you’ve been deceiving me for two and a half years,” Bones accuses, his voice low and a dangerous growl. “Why didn’t you tell _me_?” He looks as if he has a dozen other things to say, but there are running footsteps approaching them and Bones looks like he wishes he had his daughter’s ability. “Who are you affiliated with?”

“Bones,” Jim gasps out. “Those guys were just trying to kill me. Whose side do you think I’m on?”

Bones grabs at his hand, then, yanking him along with him.

“Come on. I know a place we can go.”

Jim doesn’t point out that he has one of those as well, but the thought of bringing Bones to a place where Gaila can shift into any form and Chekov can read all the deepest thoughts of Bones’ mind isn’t exactly what he wants of the evening and so he consents with a nod of his head.

As they run through darkened alleys and hide in the shadows, Jim pauses only once to think about something that’s been bothering him since Bones had stopped to take a drink of liquid courage.

Bones had fought for him without question or query as to where his alliance lay. He fought for him because…well, because Jim doesn’t know why.

*

Spock does not possess the human gene that mutated and gave the abilities to twelve percent of the world’s population. As it is, he does not believe he needs any aid beyond his Vulcan abilities and Uhura promises that this is enough for her.

There are four of them with a tenuous outside contractor aiding them when they require it. Only three of them are permitted to face the dark shadows lurking about them, but Uhura has been adamant about allowing Joanna her own choice so that when she turns eighteen, she can decide for herself what she wants to do. There are four of them and within the Academy, they try and protect it as best as they can. Spock covers the administrative areas, Uhura watches out for the student body, and McCoy has his finger on medical. Their outside contractor hasn’t been heard from in a great deal of time and there are rumours that Archer has something to do with it.

Joanna has learned to look at all of them as family and as she sits in Uhura’s shared room with a book in hand, she sits stock-still until Uhura begins to worry about the girl.

She’s staring forward, eyes on Gaila’s bed (which has gone untouched since the morning and Uhura wouldn’t worry if not for the raids on the bar that evening).

“You know Jim Kirk, don’t you? You talk about him sometimes, right?” Joanna finally pipes up, sounding distant and frightened. “How _well_ do you know him?”

“You know him better than I do,” Uhura says as she folds the clothes from the laundry with neat precision that’s come out of her relationship with Spock. “You’ve lived with him for over a year.”

“Yeah.” Her voice nearly breaks, brittle sounding and weak, and Joanna clenches the bed tighter. Her book sits to the side in disarray and she takes in a deep breath. “Has Dad called you yet?”

Joanna’s tone, her posture, and her words set off Uhura’s alarms and coax her into a sit next to the young girl on the bed, pulling her into a hug as Uhura’s eyes cloud over with gentle worry. Suddenly, there’s a crashing sound at the door and Uhura’s on her feet, mouth open to paralyze whoever’s there with a single scream.

“It’s me, it’s just me!” McCoy shouts into the room, slamming the door shut behind him without much control. Uhura winces as the hinges creak and she throws an accusing glare at McCoy. The sirens are in the distance and far, far away, but the danger is present in their own room. Uhura stares at Jim accusingly and then at McCoy. “He’s mutant. He’s like us. They came for him, I think. The AMA was there for him, they wouldn’t know what I look like.”

He drops Jim on Gaila’s bed and Uhura isn’t sure why Jim’s laughing the way he is, huffs of breathless laughter escaping his throat. Uhura gently coaxes Joanna behind her and levels Kirk with a disbelieving glare.

“What’s so _funny_?” she demands.

Jim’s only got eyes for McCoy, though. “Your safehouse and my safehouse are kind of the same place,” he says roughly, gaze sliding over to Uhura. “Do you not know? Is this, like, a thing about tonight?”

“Know what?”

While they’re talking, McCoy has picked up the heavy bookcase and is moving it with ease to protect the door from anyone who thinks they’re going to intrude. Just in case. Uhura’s used to Leonard’s ‘just in case’ scenarios and while she had found them irritable at first, she’s started to understand a father’s inclination to protect his daughter at any cost.

Jim shakes his head and swallows down his laughter. “It’s not my information to tell. Bones, I need a cloth.”

Joanna is still clasping tightly onto Uhura, as if frightened, and Uhura is stuck between being fearful and being confused.

McCoy crosses the room to the bathroom and the taps are turned on and fill the room with the sound of rushing water while everyone inside tries to understand exactly what’s going on. Soon enough, McCoy comes back and starts cleaning up Jim’s face, erasing all traces that he was ever hurt to begin with.

“Who are you allied with?” Uhura demands.

“Funny you should ask…” Jim says, just as his communicator starts trilling and he holds it up. He turns it so that Uhura can see quite clearly that it’s Gaila calling, that she’s trying to get a hold of him. He flips the phone open and allows McCoy to keep cleaning him up as he speaks. “Yeah, it’s me. No. No, I got out. I found someone like _us_.” Uhura sucks in her breath at the sudden epiphany and at Kirk’s crafty little way of telling without actually telling. “Tell Pike I’ll be there in the morning and I’m bringing someone new in. The AMA really wants me out of the picture. Warn Sulu. Warn Chekov.” With his eyes flickering up to Uhura and then to McCoy, he mouths ‘that’s all of us’ and nods as he listens to whatever Gaila has to say. “We’ll be there.”

And then he hangs up and Joanna stops clinging. She steps out in front of Uhura and there’s a tension in the room that Uhura doesn’t know how to dispel.

“You’re like us,” Joanna says in a hush.

“Yeah,” Jim agrees. “Self-healing. If I concentrate, I can heal other people. And you’re little miss speedy, huh,” he teases.

“I can slow things down if I touch them,” she says proudly. “Dad taught me.”

“And what does _Dad_ do?” Jim asks, gaze tipping up to look at McCoy as he patiently and silently tends to the wounds that have made Jim’s whole head a mess of dried blood. McCoy picks out small splinters of glass and staunches the endlessly slow trail of blood that follows each one.

Joanna looks up at McCoy as if afraid of answering for him.

“If we’re going to be honest, then you should know about all of us. My scream registers on the sonic scale,” Uhura says evenly, her arms crossed over her torso. “And no, you’re not entitled too know my first name now just because you know that. Leonard has an overabundance of strength.”

“Just learned to get it under control again,” McCoy harrumphs as he dips the cloth in a bowl of water and lets the bloody water drip away from it. When it comes clean, he lifts it again and finishes up with tidying Jim’s face with one last scrub, leaning in to inspect him at a slightly closer level.

Jim stares up at McCoy and Uhura feels as if they’re intruding on a very private moment. She glances out the window, flicking the blinds apart to get a quick glimpse before she closes them and turns to Joanna – who is gaping at Jim and McCoy as if she’s not entirely sure what’s going on.

“Let’s give them some privacy,” Uhura murmurs and offers Jim a single nod.

“Thanks,” Jim says while the divider between the two sections of the room comes down and all that they can hear is the soft murmur of conversation across the divide. It’s all innocent and Uhura’s grateful that McCoy hasn’t lost his mind and has given in to Jim’s mad ideas of daring feats in public, but it’s still their conversation to have.

Joanna is fiddling with her hands, looking up anxiously at Uhura. “Are we going to be safe?”

“I hope so,” Uhura sighs and starts to worry about Spock and Gaila once more, wondering where they are as the night grows more unsafe. This is the night that everything has begun to change and Uhura isn’t sure whether she’s looking forward to the future or whether she’s terrified of what’s going to come of it all.

*

 _2261_

 _…reports are trickling in from Washington in regards to the latest round of mutant-human rights negotiations. Sources say that a bill has just been signed that will tear down barriers that segregate the two groups in public…_

Bones looks at him from where he’s sitting at the table, gaze lifting up from the papers that have been there for the last twenty minutes. The kitchen is tidy as it can be because Joanna had been grounded and tends to rush through her punishment. She can clean the house top to bottom in thirty-minutes if she chooses.

“You want us to sign it,” Bones finally speaks as he stares at the documents.

“I want _you_ to sign it,” Jim clarifies seriously. He’s convinced the four others not to turn up to this, that he could get Bones to do it. “And then sign the one beneath it. Except that one’s less about the both of our alliances working together and more you bequeathing me all your assets if something happens to you and vice-versa.”

Bones gives him a dubious look.

“Pike says our relationship might convince people that we’re just like them,” Jim explains helpfully. “Two dads raising a little girl. Doesn’t matter that we’re all weird mutants and that she’s probably already in the next county by now on her jog or that you could put a hole through a wall if you tried and I could take my organs out as many times as I want and still come out breathing.”

“Jim, is this you proposing?”

“No, no, bequeathing assets,” Jim corrects brightly, avoiding that conversation. “Just sign all the papers and we’re one coalition, okay?”

Bones flips through the papers and studies the one on the bottom far longer than he does the one on the top. Still, he signs the both of them, muttering as he does. “I cannot believe that we’re going public with our relationship just because Pike thinks we’re good PR. When I thought I’d be doing good for this world, it wasn’t because I can smile for a picture…”

“Bones,” Jim interrupts and levels him with a dubious look.

“What?”

His signature is fresh on the page and now if anything happens to either of them, they’re listed officially as each other’s most important person in the world. Jim knows it’s just a formality and they’ll make the actual step later, but Jim still sees fit for celebration.

“Remember how you’re always bitching that my power’s more useful than yours?”

“Yeah?”

“Pike has an idea about how you and I can work together.”

McCoy slowly begins to smile, a genuine glint of curiosity sparkling in his eyes. He’s a doctor through it all and he’s been studying the mutant genome for almost a decade. He wants to know what makes them tick as much as anyone does and Jim knows how to press his buttons. Jim sets the papers aside and offers a hand to McCoy.

Bones is looking at Jim in that way that says he’s both incredibly interested and heavily aroused by the possibility of learning more.

“Pike’s new theory,” Jim murmurs, leading Bones out of the kitchen and onto the stairs, “involves the fact that couples can influence each other’s powers. You could heal faster and you could boost my strength.”

“Jim,” Bones dryly notes.

“Yes, dear?”

“This is just another way you’re trying to get my dick in you, isn’t it.”

“I’ll never tell,” Jim swears up and down, but he can’t find it in him to protest when Bones lifts him up like he’s nothing more than a twig and throws him over his shoulder. From this view, he can see the world from a whole new angle and it’s a _beautiful_ one where he can see all the lamps and paintings and daughters as half-his.

It’s not exactly the worst way to take the next step.


End file.
